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There really were some times in his life that Sue didn't know how he'd wound up where he was. And this... this was definitely one of them.

Sue had managed to catch up to Serenade after the Zodiacs had finished up at the restaurant. He still didn't really know how he managed to catch her alone, even for an instant - it seemed like Hero was always hovering over her shoulder, or Elke attached to her arm, or Andeon trying to goof with her or something. And he hadn't even known what the hell to say when that moment came, so he'd only sputtered something out like I want-- and then lost his words.

Serenade must've wanted too, though, because she'd known what he'd meant. And so it was that I want became why don't we, and between them, a time and a place was quickly decided upon. And so it was that, before noon the next day, Sue was getting off the bus outside of a small park. And Serenade was there - really there, actually there, body and soul - without any of the usual hang-ons.

Just her. The princess. And him... whatever he was supposed to be. Sue, Zue, some letter of the alphabet.

Sue ought to be greeting her right about now. Out here near the road, though, there were too many people - and it was awkward to realize, Sue had never actually spoken her real name out loud. They'd just... never have the opportunity to meet. Hi was too informal, hello was too distant, and hey... well, ********, that one was just right out. So he struggled to find something different.

"Did you, uh. Did you bring an umbrella? They said it might rain later...."

Not classy, Sue.

That was all right. It sort of sounded right, when Chronos said it like that.

... Serenade. Sue had to get it right in his head - Serenade.

He was a little stiff at the hug, and not much more comfortable returning it. And for some obscure reason, that made him guilty. Because he should be right at ease, shouldn't he? Sue was where he was supposed to be. After all the hell and torture, he'd made it out and finally got to meet the princess. This was perfect, wasn't it? Everything falling into line?

But... the feelings weren't there. Not like it should be. He felt glimmers of what he should - of warmth and belonging, of centuries of closeness. But all of that was so far off... and compared to the swamping confusion that was the here-and-now?

"Not... really that good at this stuff," Sue apologized, making a bit of room between him and Serenade. She was still within arm's reach, and that was him working damn hard to get over his own hang-ups, but... it still wasn't right, somehow. He wasn't right.

Honestly? Sue was relieved. In a terrible, selfish way, maybe, but it was still the truth. He felt like enough of a failure already without feeling like he was alone in an sea of undiscovered memory.

But really... right here wasn't the absolute best place to be talking about everything. Not just because of who might overhear, but if Sue were being honest... he didn't want to have to share Serenade in the slightest bit with the rest of the world. Not right then. So he nodded off from the street. "This way." Then Sue took Serenade's hand, pulling her away from the population and noise.

Right off of the sidewalk where he led her was a little dirt path, winding around some skinny cottonwoods and dipping down and out of sight. It wasn't an especially pretty place to be wandering through in the winter - all dead sticks and grass stalks - but it was a private place, one that Sue had enjoyed plenty of times with his cats.

The first questions were always the ones to work all of the stupid out of the conversation, in Sue's experience, and this one couldn't be any different. "Your name's Serenade, right?"

And could there be any better way for Sue to tell her that she'd never even registered to him before, that her importance had been nothing until they both awakened? ******** pathetic. That sort of thing was just wasting her time, ********, come on Sue, think of something better to say--

"I had a dream about you, I think."

Aaaand so he'd made the leap from thoughtlessly awkward right to obsessive creeper. On a ******** roll, here.

At least Serenade was graceful about the whole thing. A lot more than Sue was, anyway; it was taking a concentrated effort for him to be able to walk and talk at the same time. And despite what someone like Trace or Sebastian (rest their poor souls) might have told people back at school, that wasn't actually normal for Sue.

He licked his lips. They still felt dry, but he was pretty sure that condition had become incurable the second he'd entered the princess' proximity. Better to just work past it and see what he could get.

"I was a cat." Big surprise for Serenade to hear, he was sure, but it was a fact that needed establishing. "I was in this place - this big palace, somewhere out in space. I mean, I could look out the window and see Earth. I could've blotted it out with my paw, just easy as that...."

Move it forward, c'mon, she doesn't want to hear this stuff, she wants to hear about the part with her!

"Anyway. I'd fought with somebody who was important to me. And then there wasn't anybody for a real long time - nobody to talk to, nobody I cared about, nothing. Then there was this big party, and all the Zodiacs were there, and when I split off from them. Well. You were just a baby, I guess, and you were all alone while everyone else was celebrating. It's probably not that exciting, but...."

He rubbed at his lips. The look on Sue's face was one of exquisite thought, troubled and determined. "... I," he gritted out, and paused. Every word from here on out was slow and forced, like they were being squeezed through a tube half their size. "Saw you. And it was. It changed everything. I mean, before, it was like... I'd been walking around, right? And. I mean, my heart, I was...."

He made a wild, grasping gesture over his chest, but without the right words, it was meaningless. Sue wasn't eloquent enough for this. He couldn't just tell her, damn it! Not with every thing that it had meant there. In his dream, that moment had been so poignant. He'd nearly had tears when he'd woken up in the hospital, finding himself alone again. But tumbling out of his mouth like this, it just ********, that was about it.

"Yeah, I guess so," Sue replied to her question. For some reason, he found the fact that he'd been there very satisfactory. He couldn't even remember those days - certainly he didn't remember any tail-pulling, leaving him with little to offer but an accepting shrug to her apology - but that didn't take the fact that they'd existed away. That pride was hard-wired into him, just in the same way that the concept of the princess was so very important.

But even so....

"Thing is." Sue paused - but there really was no good way to say this, so he might as well go on. "I don't feel like I did." And since Serenade was sure to be confused, he had to take the painful admission further. "In my dream, when I saw you then, it was like... it was like coming to life. Everything'd been so damned cold for so long, and then there was... this little baby," he held out his hands, like holding that same-self child, "and it just. I don't know. It fixed everything. And I don't know why it did, and I don't know why everything's so damned... different now."

And what he wanted to say, but couldn't bring himself to admit was: And I wish it was. That bliss that Zue had felt, that pain and that worry, that immaculate need to be with that child... where was that for Sue, now? Why wasn't it something he could have?

"... I don't know. Maybe it has something to do with the prince, what happened between him and me before I met you," Sue sighed, letting his hands drop in defeat. "Eon - no, Aeon. Prince Aeon was his name...." Where'd Eon come from?

Sue shook his head, silently repeating her own thoughts - that wasn't what I'd meant to say - but, really... Eon. There was something about that name, too. Maybe not anything that had been in his dreams, but it seemed... important.

"... Aeon," Sue murmured, "was a prince. We were friends once, I think; all I remember is that we fought a lot. I'd said that he'd forgotten that he'd come from the Zodiacs." This tied into Eon. Sue thought it did, anyway, but it was impossible to really say. It was... those memories, they were back there, with that damn lazy cat that was refusing to wake up for him....

It did awaken a feeling, though. It was a deep sadness, a particularly painful remorse that made his heart throb in his chest. Sue's thoughts turned introspective, tried to examine where it had come from - but pursuing it just led to darkness, and turned the feeling into a sort of twisting, wrenching anguish that shoved him back.

Not something he wanted to touch, then - message received.

"... Princess, may I ask - what do you remember?" Sue was rubbing at his temples. He wanted a distraction.

He was trying for it. He really was. He called up associations, grasped for concepts, struggled for names, damn near wore tracks of tired neurons in his brain trying. But he wasn't getting anything; there was something more than organics separating the boy named Sue from the vast memories that Zue had held.

What he had was his dream, and Sue held that fiercely. His dream with Zue, Aeon, and Chronos. This other bit, it didn't fit in here - so if Chronos remembered it, it had to fit somewhere after. Another Zodiac, then. "It would make some sense, I think, if they were related somehow," Sue ventured at last. "Their names, I mean, they're very similar. And if we both remember Eon, he has to be a Zodiac or something, right?"

Aeon had been a prince. Chronos had been the princess after him. Was there still room for a prince among the Zodiacs, then? And if so... well, even if Eon weren't a prince, if he was associated with the Zodiacs at all....

"Do you think we're supposed to be looking for him?"

Dead? They'd all been dead. So what about being dead? He must be somewhere, then, just waiting for....

But... that look on the princess's face. It might have felt like she was only showing a gentle sadness to her, but Sue's eyes caught the details, lit them up like under a blacklight. God only knew why he could see those things in her that he was so oblivious to in other people, but he couldn't shake the feeling that there was something really, really troubling going on - and that look she wore, he couldn't help but think, wasn't just one of sadness at the absence of a friend.

"... Princess?" Sue's hand snaked out to find her wrist, slid down to catch her hand. She looked like she needed to know somebody was there. After what Sue had to ask her, she'd need somebody for sure. "He was important to you, wasn't he?"

And it was then, only then, that a memory came. Just a hint of one. Just a touch. Just Chronos, with her wild green hair gathered like a wreath around her. And then there was that other, and he was holding her in his arms, so now the both of them were tangled up in her hair - Zue was there, rolling his eyes and biting his tongue, swallowing down a million different judgments to the tune of guys is this really the time for that and no really guys, I'm pretty sure people are going to see, this is not the time for that.

And now there was the way Sue was looking at Serenade. And his face was echoing her sadness, his grip on her hand a little tighter. "He was, wasn't he." Sue didn't ask questions for what he already knew, but simply stated the obvious.